The ad had all the makings of a typical campaign commercial: the booming voice-over bemoaning $4-per-gallon gas; a candidate smiling among voters; promises that she will develop energy wisely and “rise above partisan finger-pointing.”

It concluded by urging voters to contact state Senate candidate Libby Szabo and “tell her to keep fighting for smarter energy solutions.”

What the 2008 ad didn’t do, however, was explicitly ask people to vote for, elect, support or cast their ballot for Szabo. Nor did it urge them to defeat her opponent.

That lack of so-called “magic words” was at the center of a case before the Colorado Supreme Court on Thursday that could limit the amount of money that groups known as 527s may raise — and the number of campaign ads that clog the airways in future elections.

The Senate Majority Fund and the Colorado Leadership Fund paid for the Szabo ad and ads for other Republican candidates during the 2008 election. The organizations, known as 527s for a provision of the federal tax code, are not limited in how much money they may raise or spend.

Under state law, however, if a campaign expenditure “expressly advocates” for a candidate or ballot measure, the group is considered a political committee.

Colorado election law limits the amount of money that committees may accept from any person to $500 every two years.

Colorado Ethics Watch, a government-watchdog group, filed a complaint against the Senate Majority Fund and the Colorado Leadership Fund in September 2008, arguing that the ads expressly advocated for specific candidates and therefore the 527s should be considered political committees and subject to financial limits.

Lawyers for the Senate Majority Fund and the Colorado Leadership Fund countered that under state and federal law, to expressly advocate for a candidate, the ads must include one or more of the “magic words.”

Any attempt to limit ads without the “magic words” is a violation of the First Amendment right to free speech, they said.

An administrative-law judge and a three-judge panel of the Colorado Court of Appeals agreed, and both ruled that the case should be dismissed.

Ethics Watch then appealed to the state Supreme Court, which held oral arguments Thursday at Evergreen High School.

The group’s executive director, Luis Toro, urged the court to expand the criteria beyond whether an ad uses “magic words” to whether it is “susceptible of no reasonable interpretation other than as an appeal to vote for or against a specific candidate.”

He said the public is exposed to all kinds of advertising that doesn’t use explicit words but still accomplishes its goal.

Mario Nicolais, an attorney for the 527s, urged the court to keep the “magic words” standard, calling it a clear delineation that will avoid constitutional challenges. He also noted that the 527s are still required to disclose their contributors and spending reports.

“I think the purpose of sunshine to battle corruption has been addressed here,” he said.

The owners of Boulder’s Sterling University Peaks apartments, who this summer were cited for illegally subdividing 92 bedrooms in the complex, have reached an agreement to settle the case for $410,000, the city announced Thursday.